Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

Wilhelm Zander, sitting in a chair by the windowsill, smiled thinly, as if he remembered what Bormann had said about the place. Roughly the same age, he and Geschke looked as if they’d come out of the same rat’s nest and the only noticeable difference between the two was that unlike a great many of the people who’d risen to positions of power under the Nazis, Zander wasn’t a lawyer, or, as far as I could see, a doctor of anything. Even after a longish train journey with Wilhelm Zander I knew very little about the man, but I had already come to the conclusion that I wasn’t remotely interested in finding out more. For his part, he seemed totally uninterested in the fate of my mission and had spent most of the train journey reading a book about Italy where, he told me, he still had a number of business interests. I could hardly blame him; for anyone who came from Saarbrücken, Italy must have looked like Shangri-la. A house built on the slopes of Vesuvius would have seemed more attractive than the finest dwelling in Saarbrücken.

I didn’t mind his disinterest in my job; in fact I welcomed it. The last thing I wanted was Martin Bormann’s spy looking over my shoulder while I went through the motions of being a detective. And my only concern was that the Walther P38 he’d insisted on bringing from Obersalzberg would prove more lethal to him or me than to Johann Diesbach.

“Do you know how to use that thing?” I’d asked when first I’d seen the pistol in his luggage, on the train.

“I’m not an expert. But I know how to use a gun.”

“I hope so.”

“Look here, Commissar, I didn’t want this job. And surely you don’t expect me to help you look for a wanted fugitive without a weapon. Frankly, I’d have thought you’d be glad to have some backup firepower, given that your police colleague elected to remain in Berchtesgaden.”

“No, I told him to stay.”

“May I ask why?”

“Police business.”

“Such as?”

“I’m hoping he might obtain some more information out of Frau Diesbach. A last few crumbs, perhaps, concerning the exact whereabouts of her husband.”

“And exactly how will he do that? Thumbscrews? A dog whip?”

“Sure. And if all of that fails, then Korsch will light a fire under her feet. That always works. And one thing they’re not short of in Berchtesgaden is a supply of slow-burning wood.”

I was joking about this but before I’d left I’d still felt obliged to tell Korsch very firmly that I didn’t want Eva Diesbach slapped around. It was enough, I thought, that he’d already hit her; the possibility that he might do so again — not to mention the charges that might yet be leveled against her son Benno — was probably enough, eventually, to persuade her to yield up more information.

“We don’t use methods like that in Kripo,” I told Zander. “I leave that kind of thing to people like Major Högl.”

“I had no idea you were so particular, Commissar.”

“You start beating people up during an interrogation, it becomes a bad habit. In the long term the only person who comes out damaged is the cop who’s prone to using his fists. And I don’t mean the damage to the skin on his knuckles.”

After meeting Hans Geschke, we went back to our hotel and then to dinner at the Saar Terrace by the Luisen Bridge. Like the food, the weather was foul: wet and cold, and after the blue sky and snow of Berchtesgaden, Saarbrücken felt very dismal. Geschke had told us that if he heard any news he would fetch us immediately, but when we got back to the Rheinischer Hof, I found a message from Friedrich Korsch asking me to telephone him urgently on a Berchtesgaden number, which turned out to be the Schorn Ziegler, the guest house in St. Leonhard where Captain Neumann had been staying.

“I had to move out of the Villa Bechstein,” he explained. “To make way for some Party bigwigs and their entourages who’ve turned up for the Leader’s birthday. Apparently he’s expected any minute now. Anyway, Captain Neumann said I could use his room here, in St. Leonhard, because he’s not using it, on account of how he was going back to Berlin.”

“Yes, he’s very thoughtful, is our Captain Neumann.”

I hadn’t told Korsch about the murder of Aneta Husák; I wasn’t sure there was much point in telling anyone about her. Murder — real murder, when someone innocent is killed by someone else — was becoming almost unimportant in Hitler’s Germany. Unless it was designed to discredit someone in the eyes of the Leader.

“The latest we’ve heard from the Orpo is that Diesbach’s Wanderer was found in front of the Frauentor, near the railway station in Nuremberg.”

“Nuremberg? I wonder why he went there.”

“Since 1935 Nuremberg’s had the best rail connections in Germany. Because of all the Nazi Party rallies, of course. A man in the ticket office remembers a man answering Diesbach’s description who bought three tickets: one to Berlin, one to Frankfurt, and one to Stuttgart. Trying to throw us off the scent, no doubt. Of course, Frankfurt and Stuttgart are a lot nearer French Lorraine. Assuming that’s where he’s gone.”

“How are you getting on with the Amazon lady?”

“I’m starting to quite like her, boss. She’s got some dinner on her, hasn’t she? Two lovely courses. I get hungry just looking at them.”

“Just keep your mind on the job and your mittens off her exhibits. She’s a witness, always supposing that this Fritz ever goes to trial. More importantly, did you get anything else out of her?”

“Nothing. But young Benno showed up eventually and I could see why his mama wanted him kept out of uniform. He’s much too warm for the army.”

“He’s queer?”

“Like a talking gardenia. Anyway, after I crushed his silk scarf a bit — just a bit, mind, nothing serious, he can still wear it — he told me something interesting. He used to have an aunt in the Saarland. Apparently Papa Johann has or had an older sister in Homburg. Name of Berge, Paula Berge. I looked the place up on the map. Turns out Homburg is a small town about twenty kilometers east of Saarbrücken and just the sort of place you might hole up for a while before deciding it’s safe to tiptoe across the French border. The Kaiser could be living there and no one would know. According to Benno, his dad and his aunt haven’t spoken in a long while but Benno Diesbach reckons Frau Berge used to work as a secretary for the managing director at the local Karlsberg Brewery. For all he knows she might still be there. In Homburg. In which case—”

“Brother Johann and sister Paula might have patched things up.”

“Precisely.”

“What did Mama have to say to that?”

“Not much. But she certainly looked like she wanted to give Benno a good slap.”

“I can think of worse places to hide than a brewery, can’t you?”

Early the next morning Zander and I borrowed a car from the police and drove out of town along the Kaiserslautern road, toward the little town of Homburg. I was behind the wheel of a very battered 260 convertible but Zander sat in the rear seat, as if I were his chauffeur. Not that I cared very much. I laughed when I realized this was how he proposed to make the journey to the Karlsberg Brewery.

“You really want to travel like this?”

“I don’t drive. And I believe I might as well sit in the back as anywhere else.”

“It’s not considered polite to treat a colleague like the hired help.”

“Since when did being polite worry you?”

“Now that you mention it, you’re right. Maybe we should take the top down and some local dimwit will mistake you for the Archduke Ferdinand and put a hole in your big head.”